


thinking out loud

by velvetcrowbars



Series: the wind and the sky [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff, I have fallen so far, I'm honestly not sure what you were expecting at this point, M/M, Relationship Study, there are lots of cheesy metaphors per the usual, this is really just to get a feel for these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetcrowbars/pseuds/velvetcrowbars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Akaashi had never stopped to consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, Bokuto had become the center of his universe. </p>
  <p>(not that he really minded it though)</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	thinking out loud

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Мысли вслух](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5149463) by [named_Juan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/named_Juan/pseuds/named_Juan)



> "Love is a friendship set to music."
> 
> -Joseph Campbell

_i. the ordinary world (a blue sunset against gray clouds)_

  
  


Growing up is quite possibly one of the most depressing things ever experienceable. Clothes get a little tighter, hair gets a little messier. The pure white emotions once felt begin to erode into a pile of dust, the sun shines a little less brightly and the flowers don’t seem as colorful as when the days seemed to stretch forever and hearts felt tight under sunburned skin in mid-June. The gardenias that once bloomed in throats and butterflies kept in ribcages disappear; the moon being a disk just an arm’s length away all slowly fade into a time no longer remembered except around campfires and at bar counters with old acquaintances.

  
(Akaashi Keiji has never understood Bokuto Koutarou)

 

Bokuto is a tornado in human skin, a constant flux between impossible highs and bottomless lows in the weather, both entirely predictable and yet completely unavoidable. He is a splash of red and gold on the wings of a blue sunset at the end of festival time before the fireworks go off. Constants, controls, dependent and independent variables all factor into this in a way that he can’t construe because on one hand, Bokuto is an eccentric and on the other he is a prodigy. He never grew up, and that is precisely what Akaashi does not comprehend. It makes his chest feel swollen in a good way and the tips of his fingers tingle with a feeling he can’t quite place in between his throat and lungs.

 

(Akaashi catches himself staring sometimes, but only sometimes)

 

It’s a hard thing to place in the realm of things Akaashi knows and things he does not because Bokuto isn’t one to be a solid and concrete person. Although his mood swings may have a pattern it does not mean they aren’t irregular. Almost everything contradicts itself in that way, most incredible people don’t exist without their idiosyncrasies and _oh boy_ does Bokuto have those in droves.

 

(he catches Bokuto staring too, often)

 

The first day they met, outside of the Fukurodani gym, Akaashi’s sweater still too big and shirt collar too snug, Bokuto with his usual whirlwind even then all loud outbursts and seemingly out of nowhere questions, a single streak of damp hair falling across his face, collide in a rather unceremonious way. Bokuto had already broken a sweat by the time he got there, arms glistening and shorts almost too short over warm-up leggings. Looking back on it, none of his questions were ever really out of nowhere; just like with most things there is a certain motif in the way Bokuto thinks, it had just taken him a while to figure it out.

 

“You’re a setter right? Right?!”

 

An affirmative and startled grunt had made its way from the back of his throat even with the then-unfamiliar-face less than seven centimeters from his own.

 

“See! I knew it! I could tell just by looking at you! Hey Senpai look at-”

 

(maybe he had known all along, from the first moment he saw him)

 

Seven months later, they’re both put on clean and lock up duty and just as the click of the door echos in his ears he finds that same face in the exact same position, arms planted on either side of him and eyebrows quivering in intense concentration. The air outside is cold and it looks like the first snow of December is starting to fall around them but he’s distracted by how warm the air between them turns. Two individuals sharing body heat outside of a high school gymnasium in december, a typical and everyday occurrence probably happening in every other high school around the country at seven o’clock in the evening with bags slung over their shoulders and mouths almost hidden by red scarves.

 

(they are not typical and everyday, they never had been)

 

“Hey Akaashi.”

 

“Yes, Bokuto-san?”

 

“I really wanna kiss you right now.”

 

Bokuto had managed to shatter everything in the span of a single sentence. He always had a tendency of doing that; not really being conscientious of barriers or boundaries. It didn’t seem to matter, with his mussed hair and eyes that reflected gold like translucent mirrors. It was a quality Akaashi wasn’t sure he liked or despised.

 

“Like, I  _seriously_  wanna kiss you right now so-”

 

"Are you honestly asking for permission?"

 

He makes a face halfway between a smile and a laugh. It fits perfectly across his nose still dusted in tan freckles from the summertime and between the corners of his mouth that seem to curve up so naturally against his cheeks starting to turn a pinkish hue. He straightens out his own face, checking each muscle into the most neutral expression possible.

 

“Yes?”

 

(it’s hopeful but not too much so, a voice that half expects to fall flat)

 

The feeling that had been scuffling around them finally grabs hold, and in a moment of either absolute madness or absolute mirth he replies,

 

“…Okay.”  

 

(Bokuto misses his mouth by a good few inches)

 

 

_ii. crossing the threshold (clean pages and holding hands at dawn)_

 

 

In the beginning, he does not know. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know Bokuto’s favorite color or the way he likes his tea. Or if he even likes tea. Or the songs he listens to when he’s upset or what his favorite thing to have for breakfast is.

 

(red, he likes coffee better, a song by The Smiths that he doesn’t understand, miso soup)

 

They’re both stretched out on the floor of Akaashi’s room, books scattered on either side and the table separating their barely touching knees. Despite being a grade apart, Bokuto insists on studying together, his exact words being: “It’s better if we’re together, right?”. It’s these kind of things; the things that make his heart stutter a beat and throat catch on words that were never there.

 

(he learns them all in time; between class periods and empty spaces in the clubroom)

 

He knows that Bokuto is not, in fact, studying. Not at the moment anyway, not really for the past ten minutes at all. Body fidgeting per the usual with a touch of more urgency, proximity seeming to be drawing closer and closer every time Akaashi lifts his eyes from the page of a half finished paper for Japanese literature, the space between them slowly dwindles before him. He stuffs down a sigh in exasperation and rubs his neck, trying to keep the pen moving for as long as possible. It isn’t until Bokuto is practically in his lap that he finds he simply can’t ignore the way the fingertips pressing circles against his thighs and the nose nudging at his neck are preventing any words on the women’s role in the Edo period from forming on the page.

 

“This is what you call studying?”

 

“Mmhhmm,”

 

(he’s tracing the lines on Akaashi’s neck and the dips of his clavicle with ghost touches, sending goosebumps shivering down his arms)

 

“This does not count as calculus, Bokuto-san.”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m studying  _you_ obviously,”

 

There he goes again. Saying the things that he knows will push Akaashi’s figurative buttons and get him his way. When Bokuto wants something, he does not stop until he gets it. End of story. If Akaashi has learned anything over the time they’ve known one another it is that single undeniable fact. Also that once Bokuto gets what he wants, he will undoubtedly want more of it. And more can have many different definitions in his book.

 

He doesn’t say it in a mischievous way, but more one of honesty and obviousness as if to say,

_Who doesn’t study you, I mean really?_

 

Maybe that’s what gets Akaashi the most. Because while most of the time Bokuto goes from hot to cold in seconds, there is always such a plain and blatant tone. He hides behind nothing.

 

“Studying me will not further your high school education, so I don’t-”

 

“A-ka-a-shi!”

 

(every syllable pronounced with clarity and thick undertones of whininess. but deeper, there is something else. it had taken him a long time to recognize what this specific glob of feelings was that fueled Bokuto’s words.)

 

He closed his eyes, trying to prevent the other from seeing the massive eyeroll and internal sigh that was about to escape his lips. There really was no getting around it. Bokuto truly is still about ten years old. A sunny and often petulant child who is still amazed by the most mundane things like the way Akaashi smiles and the wonderment of scoring the final digit in a match point. It’s halfway a bother and halfway endearing, the latter more than he cares to admit.

 

( _“you love it,”_  smirked into his face by Kuroo at training camp, referring to Bokuto’s enthusiastic yells after nailing a quick strike, promptly followed by a clumsily hidden attempted kiss on Akaashi’s cheek and a ruffling of his hair. he had tried to be bothered by it, a whispered  _“quiet down”_  and crease in his forehead, but apparently Kuroo had seen through the flimsy lie and slipped his comment in where only Akaashi could hear. typical.)

 

“Ten minutes.”

 

“Whoo!”

 

And all of a sudden they’re a tangle of limbs for a flurry of seconds and Bokuto is practically cooing in his ear with something resembling infatuation, his arms pulling Akaashi down to the floor behind him in a rushed movement. Legs overlapping and fingers stroking through his hair and at the nape of his neck, face burying into his shoulder. His own arm drapes across Bokuto’s waist near the bottom of his spine, letting his head find the notch where it always manages to fit just right where his cheekbone dips down.

 

(another thing Akaashi had learned: Bokuto adores cuddling)

 

The floor is stiff and cold, but the hand drawing lazy sweeps across his arm and twining the tips of his bangs between it’s fingers seems to negate it all completely. Bokuto’s touch is like an inebriate - slow acting and sweet when it’s like this, a substance that makes his brain go fuzzy in all the right ways and eyes feel heavy beneath their lids. It’s difficult to put a finger on it, the fact that the touch of a single person can make his entire body decontract, and somewhere underneath his fading conscience he probably does know what it is, but that isn’t something to be thought about right now. He finds himself leaning closer, wanting to draw into the blackhole center of this enamoring push that, at least for the moment, is the center of his universe. It had taken some getting used to, the feeling on constant contact and not being able to move without disturbing an arm or a leg; but that’s part of what he had learned too: Bokuto doesn’t seem to care about that at all, and he never has. All that matters is their existence in the same temporary infinity, as long or as more likely short it may be.

 

(he wants to fight falling asleep, but it’s late and the essay isn’t due until friday.)

 

It isn’t until he feels that there’s movement that he forces his eyes open ever so slightly. Muscled arms under his knees and behind his back, the warmth is still there and radiating into his core. He lets his eyes fall shut again, unsure of whether the words slip out of his mouth before he completely fades away. Mumbled into a shirt shoulder that smells faintly like new soap and grass after it rains:  _“Bokuto-san…”_

 

The bed is way too soft for how he remembers it and he only catches the press of lips on the tip of his nose and the corner of his eyes, feel the press of bulky fingers interlocking around the top of his own slender ones, Bokuto wrapped up around his back and the words whispered into his ear:

“Ten more minutes, okay?” with a familiar grin pressed against his neck.

 

(he doesn’t even want to fight it anymore)

 

 

_iii. approach (breathing underwater)_

 

 

Drawing parallels between two opposite things is an easy thing to do. Two halves of a whole easily fit together like puzzle pieces, always associated together, never one without the other. They balance each other out and serve as the restricting substance when the reaction is too extreme. They are, in a word, essential for one another’s existence.  

 

Considering everything, their personal quirks and polar personalities, they do not work this way. Tapping the tip of his pencil lightly and trying to stop staring out the window, Akaashi realizes that they are in fact, not opposites. More like complementary angles, compound-complex sentences that are difficult to identify at first because he can never be entirely sure whether it makes sense or not. By fact and reasoning, all brain chemistry and workings of the universe alike work against them. But it’s so easy.  

 

Something like the wind and the constellations: separate and constant yet they still brush together, the wind reaching up to swirl around the spaces between the stars. Not essential; desirable, coveted, still special all the same. Nice to hold and hard to leave. They do not need the give and take of opposing forces. They are together. Together in the simplest and most concise sense of the word.

 

It’s the only conclusions that makes sense to him whatsoever.

 

“You two make an odd pair, y’know that right?”

 

The ball nearly slips out of his hands, but not because the words Konoha slides between warm-up stretches catch him off guard.

 

(they don’t fit together like puzzle pieces, but that’s why they work)

 

It’s not that they catch him off guard, but more the fact that they were so accurately placed.

 

“Not really.”

 

His eyes glide over to where Bokuto is talking animatedly to some of the underclassmen, no doubt either explaining in overly-excited detail about their latest game or firing them up somehow, even for just a typical day at practice. His mood has been high all day long, and Akaashi can’t tell whether it was because of the win the day before or the fact that they promised to walk home together that night. He is never entirely positive about things like this, even to this day. Maybe it’s just one and maybe its a combination of both. Either way, he has to twist his mouth to hide the smile thats fighting it’s way to the surface.

 

“Ah! See, you’re making that face again.”

 

“This? This is just my face, Konoha-san.”

 

“Uh-huh. Whatever you say.”

 

(on their walk home, Bokuto kisses him four times in the shadow of the street lamps, smiling into his mouth every single time)

 

 

_iv. the road back (until the lights go completely out)_

 

 

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when things began to change. Shifted from the light flutter on the skin at the top of his neck to the low burning in the pit of his stomach. It’s as if it isn’t even happening at all, completely under his radar and coupled against his mind being constantly occupied by other ultimately more less things, Akaashi never suspects the words that are already forming in his head before he even says them.

 

(they almost slipped multiple times, but he caught them before they escaped)

 

The night is warm and heavy against his body on the particular evening that they happen to lose their first match since the start of the season.

 

(it isn’t anybody’s fault; chaulk it up to bad luck and unfortunate coincidences, at least in Akaashi’s mind that’s the way it works.)

 

Bokuto slumps against the door to the bathroom as soon as he walks out and shuts it behind him, looking painfully like a beaten down ray of light that can’t find the sun anymore. His hair, considerably longer when it’s wet, falls down over his face and drips water droplets onto his knees and the wooden floor, the towel draped over his shoulders and arms wrapped around his shins. From Akaashi’s view at the other end of the room, perched on the edge of his bed and novel held open between his thumb and forefinger, he knows that Bokuto has gone off the deep end again, chasing the rabbit down into the depth of who-knows-where. And it hurts. There’s something that coils around his heart and then he can’t  _breathe._ The twist is physical and tangible and real and it hits his chest like a hammer.

 

“At least dry your hair properly.”

 

(he’s up and across the room at his side before his brain realizes that his feet are moving)

 

He nabs the towel off Bokuto’s shoulders and tries as gently as possible to ruffle the water from his hair, slowly lifting Bokuto’s chin in the process to meet him eye to eye. His head isn’t buried anymore but his gaze remains stuck to the floor at Akaashi’s thighs knelt in front of him.

 

“Akaashi…”

 

“What is it?”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

His hands slow to a stop without his own volition. Bokuto looks different with his hair in front of his face. He looks older, more grown up and a little less happy, a little less like himself. Or maybe that’s just the current state of things, Akaashi isn’t sure. But it’s piling up inside of him, whatever the statement that’s pushing at his throat is, is wanting to be revealed. His mouth goes dry and he knows his fingers are trembling slightly. He stuffs it down again in the back of his chest, willing it to stop, to give him a break for a second. He smooths back the front of Bokuto’s hair away from his forehead, holding his temples between his hands and combing through the bangs with his fingers.

 

Then Bokuto looks up at him.

 

“If I had managed to get it at the end…it wouldn’t have…turned out like that. So, I’m sorry.”

 

And it clicks. It finally falls into place.

 

_Oh._

 

_“I really love Bokuto-san.”_

 

The weight disappears, replaced instead by a wave of simpleness and ease. He closes his eyes and just breathes for a second, enjoys the sensation of knowledge, and what he now knows is love. Love. Of all things, love. It’s almost enough to make him laugh, struggling to hold in the grin that he knows is about to spread across his face.

 

“Akaashi wait, you…”

 

(love isn’t so bad as it turns out after all,)

 

“You…love me?”

 

Wait. He hadn’t right? Did he really say that outloud? No way, the impossibility was too overwhelming for it to be true. Maybe?

 

“Akaashi, do you love me!? You love me, don’t you?”

 

From zero to eighty in .6 seconds flat, that’s how fast Bokuto can shift gears. Suddenly his eyes are wide open and glistening, eyebrows shot up in shock and corners of his mouth easily turning up into a gigantic smile.

 

“Say it again, Akaashi. Do you love me?”

 

(it’s the same as the first time they kissed, his voice hopeful and filled with longing that Akaashi didn’t know was there yet)

 

He’s still holding Bokuto’s face between his hands, but now Bokuto’s own hands are gripped around his arms, leaning softly into them like a bird holds onto a high branch when an updraft blows by. It’s so quiet in the room, in the dense air between them but that isn’t as scary as Akaashi thought it would be.

 

He had always thought love would be something for like standing at the edge of a cliff for the sole purpose of waiting to be pushed off. But now that he’s actually in it, it’s really more like standing at the edge of a cliff with someone holding your hand, all the power to let go and let you fall, but you know that they won’t. It’s knowing that they would never let go. It’s trust and admiration that holds the two of you together, because once you get the courage to look up from the drop and across at the view, it’s incredible all there is to see.

 

“Yeah, I do. I love you, Bokuto-san.”

 

Bokuto chuckles a little to himself and looks back down at the floor but his hold on Akaashi’s arms tighten. Then he’s scrambling up onto his feet and running towards the window they had opened earlier to let the cooler air in, nearly falling over his own steps on the way there. Then he’s planted firmly at the sill, leaning halfway out into the nighttime sky from the second story and before Akaashi can so much as fully stand up let alone stop him, he’s yelling:

 

“Hey everyone guess what?! I’m the luckiest goddamn person alive and y’know why?! Because Akaashi Keiji loves me! He loves me! I win this one! Akaashi Keiji loves me and I love him!”

 

And then he’s turned around and finds Akaashi’s eyes with his own, a little out of breath and laughter and bliss bordering on the edge of his voice. Before Akaashi even has time to process Bokuto’s running back at him, and he’s faintly aware of firm hands against his hips and a spinning sensation in his head. His feet aren’t even on the ground anymore, his legs wrapping around Bokuto’s waist on pure instinct. The room stops spinning and he realizes Bokuto is holding him with the most ridiculous beam of a smile on his face and hair still falling half across his forehead.

 

“Bokuto-sa-”

 

“I am so in love with Akaashi Keiji.”

 

(it sounds like a promise. Akaashi realizes that it is.)

 

He lets the grin from earlier come through and Bokuto pulls him closer to his chest.

 

“I know.”

 

( _yeah, love really isn’t bad at all_.)

**Author's Note:**

> so to summarize:
> 
> i love bokuaka a lot and this is stupid and terrible 
> 
> thank you that is all
> 
> also 
> 
> thank you to grace for being my beta!! (and for discussing these two dorks with me in general you are the bomb dot com)
> 
> the titles for the sections are from the literary method 'the hero's journey' - aka i cannot write things in normal storylines so this happened sorry. sorry there is literally no semblance of order here, i just have lots of feelings this is such a vent fic okay bye


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